Despite growing pressure from the main supermarket giants and the discounters, Simon Howie Butchers has enjoyed a year of sales growth with a 5% year on year increase in turnover and a 1% rise in operating profits.

In the year to December 31, 2016, the Perthshire-based company, reported higher sales with lower prices than those of the past five years, achieved by marketing of new products.

"A reduction in raw material costs allowed us to pass on some significant price reductions to our customers and allowed any increases in overheads to be absorbed without having price increase negotiations," said Mr Howie.

However, he warned that 2017 has been a completely different year. "This year will likely reveal a different outcome as we now see costs rising significantly both on raw materials and overheads."

He added that improvements are constantly needed in terms of product development, packaging, presentation and marketing to keep up with industry competitors which coupled with the rise in cost of labour and other variable costs is likely to affect margins in the coming year.